Various thiol type compounds have been disclosed to date. Particularly, thiol compounds containing an amino group have long attracted interest and found utility in a wide range of applications because of their unique qualities. For example, cysteamine, a compound that has the simplest structure of all such amino group-containing thiol compounds, is useful as an intermediate for medicines and as an agent for treating hair and imparting permanent wave thereto. N-alkyl substituted compounds, namely amino group-containing thiols, which incorporate therein an alkyl group, have been found useful in the field of printing (as disclosed in JP-A-06-127,168), as intermediates for medicines (as disclosed in JP-A-48-44,244), in the field of photography (as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,221,013), and in the field of rubber (as reported in J. Am. Chem. Soc., Vol. 69, page 2672, 1947), for example.
Novel thiols containing an amino group, therefore, have reasons to promise a great usefulness. N-Methyldodecylaminoethane thiol, which is disclosed in DE 631,016 and undecylaminoethane thiol, which is reported in J. Org. Chem., Vol. 27, page 4222, 1962, are, for the time being, the only concrete examples of amino group-containing thiols that incorporate therein a long-chain alkyl or alkenyl group.